Today's Top Alzheimer's News

An August 21, 2013 Scientific American article reported on the use of intranasal insulin as a possible Alzheimer's treatment. According to the article, "The newest chemical under investigation for managing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is actually not new at all. Insulin, the therapeutic hormone all-too familiar to individuals with diabetes, has been around for decades…The latest insulin therapy is not delivered via injection like its diabetes-treating counterparts, nor does it come in the form of a pill or a patch like the cholinesterase inhibitors often prescribed to patients with AD. Instead this novel therapeutic enters the body through the nose—the only entry point that gives insulin a chance of reaching the brain."

An August 20, 2013 Fox News article reported on the "divided" scientific community over recent research that points to a link between Alzheimer's and copper. According to the article, The scientific community is divided on the question of whether copper -- found in red meat, vegetables, dairy products as well as pipes that carry drinking water in much of the developed world -- causes or prevents Alzheimer's disease.However, other experts who have studied copper and Alzheimer's questioned the paper's findings."Research including our own shows the opposite, that copper prevents amyloid from forming the type of structures seen in the plaques," said Christopher Exley, professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry at Keele University in Staffordshire." Also covered by CNN, UCLA and others.

An August 19, 2013 Huffington Post article by Howard Fillit, founding executive director and chief science officer of the Institute for the Study of Aging and Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, advocated for Medicare's coverage of Amyvid testing for Alzheimer's. According to Fillit, "The case of Amyvid also has repercussions for the drug discovery and development process. With no treatments available to prevent or slow Alzheimer's, the only way to halt the epidemic is to invest in new research for new drugs and diagnostics. This requires 12-15 years of research and billions of dollars. The high research and development costs create tremendous risk and the reality is that most drug research programs fail…We urge Medicare to work collaboratively with patients, doctors, and the research industry to make decisions that are beneficial to both individuals and society, as we transition from the individual driven, fee-for-service system to what is essentially managed care and population-based health under healthcare reform."

Why 2020?

UsAgainstAlzheimer’s has retained its goal of stopping Alzheimer’s by 2020 rather than endorsing the goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease that calls for preventing and effectively treating the disease by 2025. While we support the national plan and its goals, we believe, as most every family touched by Alzheimer’s disease believes, that preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer's by 2025 is simply too long a wait for concrete progress. There are promising avenues of drug discovery and development that will, if successful, deliver a means of slowing or deferring Alzheimer's symptoms by 2020. By voicing the urgency felt by so many families, we will pressure researchers and industry to do all in their power to make that happen.